The beauty of The Cape is pretty much undeniable, you can see why the Dutch just felt they had to stop when they stumbled across it on their spice tours to India.
From those days to this has been a pretty dismal story of one inhumane injustice after another on this stunning coast line that technically only “ended” 20 years ago. From my observations there is a strong undercurrent of the legacy of all this history and the impact it has had on every single South African, juxtaposed with the cosmopolitan vibrant city that is Cape Town. Its not a bad thing, its the reality that there are many people walking around who either lived through apartheid or was raised by people who agreed with it, these people cannot have their belief systems changed without time or renewal of beliefs systems through new generations.
Cape Town functions with everyone living together but you sense how fragile that is and the tensions in so many otherwise normal situations, the way they queue to get on the bus and one guy feels its his place to instruct others who they need to let on the bus first, the types of people that are in the physical labour jobs, the way a patron of a restaurant would address the staff members of a different race and the fact that not one of the many unofficial poorer settlements have white south Africans living there.
The affirmative action by the government is feeding a kind of frustration among citizens; it is also sad but true that they have to enforce equality in that way or nothing would change, people who own the firms would keep ranking people by hiring people into their stereotypes. There are situations everywhere in which people seem to be tolerating not accepting the changes that are trying to provide the ethnic groups some kind of equality in a society in which they have been the underclass in for hundreds of years.
Its seems evident from history (Hitler is another example in which some superficial difference was used to control and dominate) that it is human nature to want to keep certain people subdued and under control in order to feel better about ones own position, for me its a straight forward question of who would naturally want to give that position of power and control up?
When I think of it like that, none of the tension I witnessed surprised me, the ethinics are happy to have a job opportunity and the white south Africans are not so happy there is more competition and they have to share things that were once exclusive. Now I’m aware that’s a massive generalisation and there are many outliers on the spectrum but when you get down to the simplicity of what’s happened over the last 20 years, you have taken systematically from one group to give to another to even things out a bit; who would like that? There would naturally be instant rebellion, sulking while towing the line (tolerance) and then eventually acceptance, I think acceptance will take a few generations of living together through education as children and working together as peers allowing understanding and friendships to form over time.
Right now, Cape town is the most cosmopolitan and liberal of the areas in South Africa, the people I met that were South African told me as much, its why they go to cape town to holiday and its why I would recommend it as a place to visit and mostly would go back myself. It has the most beautiful natural landscape and a city with everything you could need, its in a place of growth but to me that a positive thing.
I met some of the most interesting and friendly people I have met on this whole trip in south Africa, most of them South African some of them have grown up with prejudices they are shaking, some are overly concerned about the perception of south African people being racist and some are doing their bit to make their country a fairer place to live and so I have a massive respect for each of them. In my personal experience I never felt unwelcome but me being me I was aware of my surroundings and picked up on a dynamic that is just below the surface for the tourist but real for the locals.